The Story Behind Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt - Classic FM Classic FM Guides Now Playing Schedule The Story Behind Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) wrote his five-act allegorical drama Peer Gynt in 1867 while living in Italy. It tells the story of the downfall and subsequent redemption of a Norwegian peasant anti-hero. Unlike Ibsen’s previous dramas, it was written in verse and wasn’t originally intended for stage performance. However, in 1874, Ibsen changed his mind and wrote to his friend and compatriot Edvard Grieg to ask if he would compose the music for a production of the play. Flattered to have received the invitation, Grieg agreed at once, but doubt soon set in. Much as he admired the drama as a literary work, Grieg found composing for it a difficult task. “Peer Gynt progresses slowly,” he wrote to a friend in August 1874, “and there is no possibility of having it finished by autumn.

It is a terribly unmanageable subject.” As work continued, Grieg began to be drawn into the drama and, as his wife noted, “the more he saturated his mind with the powerful poem, the more clearly he saw that he was the right man for a work of such witchery and so permeated with the Norwegian spirit”. The music was completed in the autumn of 1875, and the play’s lavishly staged premiere took place on February 24, 1876 in the Mollergaden Theatre, Christiania (now Oslo), with the orchestra conducted by Grieg himself. Though a triumphant success, the performance prompted the composer to complain bitterly that the Swedish management of the theatre had given him specifications as to the duration of each number and its order: “I was thus compelled to do patchwork… In no case had I opportunity to write as I wanted… Hence the brevity of the pieces,” he said. When Peer Gynt was revived in Copenhagen in 1885, Grieg took the opportunity to re-orchestrate much of the music. For both this and a subsequent revival in 1902, he added new pieces.

The score was published in 1908, a year after Grieg died, with 23 individual numbers lasting a total of nearly 90 minutes. Not surprisingly, given the length of both drama and incidental music, full-scale productions are rarely mounted and the original score with soloists, chorus and melodrama is far less well known than the two suites that Grieg assembled in 1888 and 1893. Second to Grieg’s Piano Concerto, the Peer Gynt Suite No.1 is the composer’s most popular work, and of its four movements Morning and In The Hall Of The Mountain King are among the most loved of all short orchestral compositions. Hear it on: Peer Gynt, Incidental Music to Ibsen’s Drama, Op. 23 Peer Gynt, Incidental Music to Ibsen’s Drama, Op.

23 About the Work National Symphony Orchestra: Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor/Grieg's Peer Gynt © Richard Freed Last September, the month in which the current concert season began, marked significant anniversaries for two great composers who came to personify their respective countries in music: the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Finland's Jean Sibelius, and the centenary of the death of Norway's Edvard Grieg. Throughout this season, Vladimir Ashkenazy has celebrated both composers in his concerts in various parts of the world; his NSO concerts last week were devoted to the music of Sibelius, and this week's program provides a rare opportunity to hear substantially all the music Grieg composed for Peer Gynt in its original context, incorporating not only the vocal numbers of his score but also the pertinent lines of Henrik Ibsen's text. It was not as a play, but in the form of a dramatic poem, that Ibsen originally published his Peer Gynt in 1867. Seven years later, when he adapted the work for the stage, he invited Grieg to compose music for the first production.

Grieg, by then 30 years old, had not only become a celebrity with the success of his Piano Concerto in 1869, but had shown an aptitude for the theater in the incidental music he composed in 1872 for Bjornstjerne Bjornson's Sigurd Jorsalfar. He had been working on an opera with Bjornson (Olav Trygvason) when he received Ibsen's request in January 1874, but by then both composer and librettist had lost interest in the project, leaving Grieg free to take on the new one. At first Grieg considered Ibsen's play "most unmusical," and showed little enthusiasm for what he regarded as its excessive satirizing of the foibles of the national character, but he did take it on, and what he and Ibsen produced together achieved the status of something like a national epic. Grieg, of course, chose the "nationalist" course early in his creative life, mining folk material for use in his chamber music and concert works.

Ibsen (1828-1906) was not only Norway's most celebrated writer, but perhaps the greatest dramatist of his time. While his plays A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler and Ghosts have Norwegian settings, it was in Peer Gynt that he turned to folklore himself: the drama is based in large part on folk tales from Norway's Gudbrandsal region, and the title character was modeled in large part on the exploits of an actual person whose exploits some thirty years before Ibsen's birth were known to the playwright and his compatriots. In this work, the last he wrote in verse, Ibsen set out to focus on specifically Norwegian characteristics, some of them decidedly unattractive. He had little tolerance for smugness or arrogance, in any form or from any source. Although the music Grieg composed for Peer Gynt represents one of the most successful ventures in the abundant category of "incidental music," having long since taken its place among the most beloved items in the concert repertory as well, he and Ibsen constituted a classic "odd couple" as collaborators.

Ibsen had his own ideas about the sort of music his play ought to have, and he suggested that Grieg incorporate in his score a vast tone poem quoting national airs of the various countries visited by Peer Gynt in his wanderings. Grieg ignored that particular idea, and responded with brief numbers which enhanced the drama rather than interrupting it; he provided songs for some of the individual characters, some numbers with chorus, and "melodrama" (music accompanying spoken words) as well as the remarkably evocative orchestral vignettes. The assignment proved to be more effortful than he could have foreseen, as he reported to several friends and associates during his 18 months of work on it. The premiere took place in Oslo (known then as Christiania) on February 24, 1876, and Grieg was not present; he remarked to a colleague that he had been compelled to set his ideals aside because of the "weak orchestra, and to emphasize crowd-pleasing stage effects," and therefore preferred not to attend. Nonetheless, the premiere, which took five full hours, was enormously successful, and Grieg's music was conspicuously credited in the newspaper reviews.

The composer finally did attend a performance on November 12, nearly nine months after the premiere, and he reported that he "had the honor of being rapturously acclaimed both in the middle of the piece (after Solveig's Song) and at the end, when I had to leave my seat in the stalls and appear on the stage." Ibsen was less enthusiastic than the critics; he felt that Grieg had "prettified" his play. Grieg, on the other hand, expressed embarrassment over certain facets of his success in meeting Ibsen on his own terms, describing the music he wrote for "the Hall of the Mountain King" as "something . . . I literally cannot bear to hear, it so reeks of cow-turds and super-Norwegianism and �to-yourself-enoughness!'" Posterity, of course, has been both more generous and more accurate in its judgment of both playwright and composer, and Grieg himself was content not only to continue adding to his score, but to take parts of it�including the very section he described so negatively�into the concert hall. The two concert suites he extracted from the stage music�Suite No. 1, Op.

46, in 1888; No. 2, Op. 55, in 1891�were to become his most frequently performed works after the famous Piano Concerto. The play itself has never been out of repertory in Northern Europe. By 1913 it had become so popular that in Berlin two theaters presented it at the same time, and both productions ran more than three years. Just after World War II Peer Gynt became a mainstay of Britain's Old Vic company, which included the play in its American tour, with Ralph Richardson in the title role. Over the years other composers have written music for Peer Gynt--most notably Grieg's latter-day compatriot Harald Saeverud, for a 1948 production in modern Norwegian rather than Ibsen's original "Dano-Norwegian"--and as recently as 1987 Alfred Schnittke composed an entirely new score for John Neumeier's full-evening ballet "freely based on Ibsen's play, but the title stubbornly preserves its connection with Grieg, even more strongly, among great numbers of people, than with Ibsen himself.

Grieg assigned the opus number 23 to his music for the play, and some pieces were added to the original score for new productions over the years. For a production in Copenhagen, ten years after the Norwegian premiere, several of Grieg's piano pieces were added, in orchestrations by others Danish composers, and at about the time of Grieg's death one of these, the Norwegian Bridal Procession, was reorchestrated by his compatriot and friend Johan Halvorsen. It was Halvorsen who edited the first published score of the incidental music, in 1908, a year after Grieg's death. The first complete score, comprising 26 numbers and edited by Finn Benestad, was not published until 1988; it is this critical edition that forms the basis of Mr. Ashkenazy's concert version, first performed in Italy early last year and given in Cleveland last September. Only three brief numbers are omitted, and these essentially amount to repetitions of music that is included. The songs and choral numbers are sung in Norwegian; the spoken text, in English, has been adapted by John de Lancie.

THE STORY OF PEER GYNT While the Ibsen plays more familiar to American audiences deal with real-life situations in what was for the playwright familiar contemporary settings, Peer Gynt is set largely in a fantasy-world. The hero (or anti-hero) of this five-act drama visits exotic places, encounters weird beings, and most of all creates impossible situations for himself. He is a firebrand in his youth: boastful, smug, unapologetically deceitful and lecherous, with no pretensions to the polish of a Don Juan and no scruples about much of anything, his love for his mother his only apparent virtue. Grieg himself, in the preface to the score of his Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, provided this summary of the play: "Peer Gynt, the only son of impoverished Norwegian peasants, is described by the poet as a personality suffering from an excess of fantastic imagination as well as from delusions of grandeur. In his youth he commits many a mad prank; he comes to a peasant wedding, abducts the bride and carries her up to the mountain heights, where he leaves her, to roam with wild shepherd girls.

Soon he loses his way into the realm of the Mountain King, whose daughter falls in love with him and dances for him, but he makes fun of the dance and the . . . music, whereupon the mountain folk set out to kill him. He escapes, journeys to foreign continents. In Morocco he assumes the airs of a prophet and is greeted by Arabian maidens. After many a strange turn of fate he finally returns home as an old man, once more penniless, having suffered shipwreck on the way. Here the love of his youth, Solveig, who has remained true to him through the years, greets him; his weary head at last finds rest in her lap." Here is a fuller synopsis of the story as told in Ibsen's words and Grieg's music in the present concerts: Act I AT THE WEDDING is the title of the Prelude. The play opens at a village wedding. Peer Gynt, aged 20, has been warned by his mother to mend his ways, as his idleness has cost him his own chance to marry Ingrid, the rich man's daughter who now is marrying someone else.

At the wedding Peer meets the unpretentious Solveig, whose modesty provides a sharp contrast with his bluster and yarn-spinning. (Her famous song, to appear in Act IV, is more than hinted at in the Prelude.) They are attracted to each other, but Peer gets drunk, seizes the bride, and runs off with her. Grieg, who collected and arranged dozens of actual Norwegian dance tunes, wrote two original ones for this scene: one takes the form of a HALLING, the other a SPRINGAR. Originally these two dances were for the Hardanger fiddle, a folk instrument with sympathetic strings (like a viola d'amore). In Norway in the middle of the last century, one of the great performers of the role of Peer Gynt, Alfred Maurstad, was himself a skilled enough fiddler to perform the solos in these dances. Act II The Prelude to Act II, familiar to us as the opening of the Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, is THE ABDUCTION OF THE BRIDE; INGRID'S LAMENT. The violent music of the opening and close of this piece frames the lamentation of the young woman Peer carried off from her wedding and has by now abandoned.

In PEER GYNT AND THE HERD-GIRLS, Peer encounters three young women searching for their lost lovers�and assures them he is man enough for all three of them. Now Peer finds himself in the domain of the Trolls. He is approached by the daughter of their Mountain King (PEER GYNT AND THE WOMAN IN GREEN), and rides off with her on the back of a pig to meet her father, remarking that "Great folk may be known by the mounts that they ride." IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING, a shrine to "the darker side of human nature," the Trolls are outraged by his conquest of the royal daughter, and call for his punishment: "Kill him! Kill him!" Peer buys some time by voicing his acceptance of the Trolls' creed of pretense and deceit, but after making offensive comments on the DANCE OF THE MOUNTAIN KING'S DAUGHTER he must flee for his life. PEER GYNT HUNTED BY TROLLS is saved only by the sound of church bells in the distance: the Trolls execute a riotous retreat and the Hall of the Mountain King crumbles into dust.

Act II ends with an encounter between PEER GYNT AND THE BOYG, another malevolent figure. Boasting that he "conquers but does not fight," he is invisible and able to change his shape in order to keep Peer from getting away or effectively responding to his threats. Once again, the sound of church bells, now reinforced by an organ, free Peer from a menacing presence. Act III Peer is back on his home ground, with Solveig at his side, but now thoughts of the Woman in Green and the son she bore him, he actually experiences feelings of unworthiness, and leaves Solveig to visit his widowed mother, Ase. She is near death, and Peer describes her bed as a royal coach for a joyful journey to a resting place "east of the sun and west of the moon." The music of ASE'S DEATH, which Grieg included in his Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, is the serves both as Prelude to Act III and its concluding music. Act IV MORNING MOOD, the well known opening section of the Suite No. 1, is the Prelude to Act IV, which takes place nowhere near Peer's northern home, but in the African desert.

(Grieg cautioned against overinterpretation of this piece, but stated, "I imagine the sun breaking through the clouds at the first forte.") Peer has become rich, but after his false friends make off with his yacht, which conveniently explodes with them aboard, he again becomes a wanderer. In THE THIEF AND THE RECEIVER we meet a criminal pair who have robbed an emperor of his horse and robes. Peer's approach frightens them into decamping without their treasures. Peer does not hesitate to garb himself in the imperial robes and ride the horse to a camp of Bedouins, who receive him as a prophet. Musicians and a chorus of women salute him with a colorful ARABIAN DANCE, and the daughter of the chieftain performs ANITRA'S DANCE, scored for strings and triangle and marked Tempo di mazurka. (Both of these dances figure in the concert suites; Grieg expressed the wish that in the Arabian dance "each of the dancing girls will have her own tambourine.") PEER GYNT'S SERENADE is an attempt to woo Anitra, but she is not impressed, and makes off with what was left of his money.

Peer goes in a different direction, to a madhouse in Cairo, and Act IV ends with a preparation for the d�nouement: a scene back in Norway, in which the perdurably faithful Solveig, awaiting his return, sings her radiant song of devotion. Act V The Prelude to Act V is called PEER GYNT'S HOMECOMING: STORMY EVENING ON THE SEA; it is not so much a graphic representation of the storm as a reflection of the aged but still tempestuous Peer's feelings on reaching the coast of his homeland after his numerous adventures. He is still capable of monstrous behavior, as he demonstrates during the SHIPWRECK by pushing the ship's cook off the overturned hull to keep it afloat for himself. Once ashore, he pauses outside as SOLVEIG SINGS IN THE HUT, but, having just sent a man to his death, he does not make his presence known to her. In a NIGHT SCENE he is overcome with thoughts of his misspent life, and shamed by a voice from his mother's grave.

The Button Moulder, a personification of Death, passes by, announcing that he will take Peer before sun-up unless he can offer an acceptable defense: he is, after all, no better than a poorly made button, which can only be melted down for recasting. No one from his past adventures can provide the testimony he needs, but on hearing people heading to church through the forest intoning their WHITSUN HYMN: OH BLESSED MORNING, Peer returns to Solveig's hut and enters. Solveig too is old now, and nearly blind, but her love is undiminished and she is his redemption. SOLVEIG'S CRADLE SONG is the Epilogue marking the end of Peer's incredible adventures. In a touch of Grieg's own, the Whitsun Hymn is heard again in the distance. Related Artists/Companies Peer Gynt - Edvard Grieg — Listen and discover music at Last.fm Peer Gynt edvard grieg Peer Gynt (Norwegian pronunciation: ; English: /ˈpɪər ˈɡɪnt/) is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen , loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt.

Interpreted in its day as a satire on the Norwegian personality, Peer Gynt is the story of a life based on avoidance. Ibsen asked Edvard Grieg to compose incidental music for the play. Grieg composed a score that plays approximately ninety minutes. Grieg extracted two suites of four pieces each from the incidental… read more Don't want to see ads? Subscribe now Tracklist Peer Gynt – history and synopsis | Norwegian Ibsen Company – Kåre Conradi Kåre Conradi Peer Gynt – history and synopsis This page is a history and synopsis of Ibsen’s masterpiece Peer Gynt, for our current tour of the one-man-show Peer Gynt with Kåre Conradi please see the Current Tour link. Peer Gynt (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈpeːr ˈɡʏnt]) is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt and is the most widely performed of all Norwegian plays. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the “cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones”. Peer Gynt has also been described as the story of a life based on procrastination and avoidance.

A first edition of 1,250 copies was published on 14 November 1867 in Copenhagen. Despite having swiftly sold out, a re-print of 2,000 copies, which followed after only 14 days, didn’t sell out until seven years later. While Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson admired the play’s “satire in Norwegian egotism, narrowness, and self-sufficiency” and described it as “magnificent”, Hans Christian Andersen, Georg Brandes and Clemens Petersen all joined a widespread hostility. Enraged by Petersen’s criticisms in particular, Ibsen defended his work by arguing that it “is poetry; and if it isn’t, it will become such. The conception of poetry in our country, in Norway, shall shape itself according to this book.” Despite this defense of his poetic achievement in Peer Gynt, the play was his last to employ verse; from The League of Youth (1869) onwards, Ibsen was to write drama only in prose. Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt in deliberate disregard of the limitations that the conventional stagecraft of the 19th century imposed on drama.

Its 40 scenes move uninhibitedly in time and space and between consciousness and the unconscious, blending folkloric fantasy and unsentimental realism. Raymond Williams compares Peer Gynt with August Strindberg’s early drama Lucky Peter’s Journey (1882) and argues that both explore a new kind of dramatic action that was beyond the capacities of the theatre of the day; both created “a sequence of images in language and visual composition” that “became technically possible only in film. “ Peer Gynt was first performed in Christiania (now Oslo) on 24 February 1876, with original music composed by Edvard Grieg, which includes some of today’s most recognized classical pieces, In the Hall of the Mountain King and Morning Mood. It was published in a German translation in 1881, in English in 1892, and in French in 1896. The play is very loosely based on a Norwegian fairy tale, Per Gynt, believed by Ibsen to be rooted in fact.

Ibsen was also generally inspired by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen’s collection of Norwegian fairy tales, published in 1845 (Huldre-Eventyr og Folkesagn). Several of the characters are modeled after Ibsen’s own family, notably his parents Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg. Characters Åse, a peasant’s widow Peer Gynt, her son Two old women with corn–sacks Aslak, a blacksmith A man and a wife, newcomers to the district Solveig and little Helga, their daughters The farmer at Hægstad The bridegroom and his parents Three alpine dairymaids A green-clad woman, a troll princess The Old Man of the Mountains, a troll king (Also known as, The Mountain King) Multiple troll-courtiers, troll-maidens and troll-urchins A couple of witches The Bøyg, a voice in the darkness Kari, a cottar’s wife Master Cotton. Anitra, daughter of a Bedouin chief Arabs Dr.

Begriffenfeldt, director of the madhouse at Cairo Huhu, a language–reformer from the coast of Malabar Hussein, an eastern Minister A fellow with a royal mother Several madmen and their keepers A Norwegian skipper Plot Act I Peer Gynt is the son of the once highly regarded Jon Gynt. Jon Gynt spent all his money on feasting and living lavishly, until there was nothing left; thus, Jon had to go from his farm as a wandering salesman, leaving his wife and son behind in debt. Åse, the mother, wished to raise her son to restore the lost fortune of his father, but Peer is soon to be considered useless. He is a poet and a braggart, not unlike the Norwegian youngest son from the fairy tales, the “Ash Lad”, with whom he shares some characteristics. As the play opens, Peer gives an account of a reindeer hunt that went awry, a famous theatrical scene generally known as “the Buckride.” His mother scorns him for his vivid imagination, and taunts him because he spoiled his chances with Ingrid, the daughter of the richest farmer.

Peer goes straight to Ingrid’s wedding, scheduled for the following day, because he may still get a chance with the bride. His mother follows quickly to stop him from shaming himself completely. At the wedding, Peer is taunted and laughed at by the other guests, especially the local blacksmith, Aslak, who holds a grudge after an earlier brawl. But in the same wedding, Peer meets a family of Haugean newcomers from another valley. He instantly notices the daughter, Solveig, and asks her to dance. She refuses because of her father and because Peer’s reputation has preceded him. She leaves, and Peer starts drinking. When he hears that the bride has locked herself in, he seizes the opportunity and runs away with the bride, and spends the night with her in the mountains… Act II His action has a consequence: Peer is banished. As he wanders the mountains, his mother, Solveig, and Solveig’s father search for him. During his getaway, he meets 3 amorous dairy-maids who are waiting to be courted by trolls (a folklore motif from Gudbrandsdalen). He becomes highly intoxicated with them and spends the next day alone suffering from a hangover.

He runs head-first into a rock and swoons, and the rest of the second act takes place in Peer’s dreams. He comes across a woman clad in green who turns out to be the daughter of the troll mountain king. Together they ride into the mountain hall, and the troll king gives Peer the opportunity to become a troll if Peer would marry his daughter. Peer agrees to a number of conditions, but declines in the end. He is then confronted with the fact that the green-clad woman is with child. Peer denies this; he claims not to have touched her, but the wise troll king replies that he begat the child in his head. Crucial for the plot and understanding of the play is the question asked by the troll king: What is the difference between troll and man? The answer given by the Old Man of the Mountain is: “Out there, where sky shines, humans say: ‘To thyself be true.’ In here, trolls say: ‘Be true to yourself and to hell with the world.’” Egoism is a typical trait of the trolls in this play. From then on, Peer uses this as his motto, always proclaiming that he is himself, whatever that is.

One of the most interesting characters is the Bøyg; a creature who has no real description. On the question “Who are you?” The Bøyg answers, “myself.” In time, Peer also takes the Bøyg’s important saying as a motto: “Go around.” The rest of his life, he “beats around the bush” instead of facing himself or the truth. Upon waking up, he is confronted by Helga, Solveig’s sister, who gives him food and regards from her sister. Peer gives the girl a silver button for Solveig to keep, and asks that she not forget him. Act III As an outlaw, Peer struggles to build his own cottage in the hills. Solveig turns up and insists on living with him. She has made her choice, she says, and there will be no return for her. Peer is delighted and welcomes her, but as she enters the cabin, an elderly woman in a green dress appears with a limping boy at her side. This is the green-clad woman from the mountain hall. She has cursed him by forcing him to remember her, and all his previous sins, when facing Solveig.

Peer hears a ghostly voice saying, “Go roundabout, Peer”, and decides to leave. He tells Solveig he has something heavy to fetch. He returns in time for his mother’s death, and then sets off overseas. Act IV Peer is away for many years, taking part in various occupations and playing various roles including that of a businessman engaged in enterprises on the coast of Morocco. Here, he explains his view of life, and we learn that he is a businessman with dirty money on his hands. He has been a missionary, a slave-trader, and many other things. His friends rob him, and leave him alone on the shore. Then he finds some stolen bedouin gear, and in these clothes, he is hailed as a prophet by a local tribe. He tries to seduce Anitra, the chieftain’s daughter, but she gets away, and leaves him. Then he decides to become a historian, and travels to Egypt. He wanders through the desert, passes the Memnon and the Sphinx. As he addresses the Sphinx, believing her to be the Bøyg, he encounters the keeper of the local madhouse, himself insane, who regards Peer as the bringer of supreme wisdom.

Peer comes to the madhouse, and understands that all of the patients live in their own worlds, being themselves to such a degree that no one cares for anyone else. In his youth, Peer had dreamt of becoming an emperor. In this place, he’s finally hailed as one — the emperor of the “self.” Peer despairs and calls for the “Keeper of all fools,” i.e. God. Act V Finally, on his way home as an old man, he is shipwrecked. Among those on board, he meets the Strange Passenger, who wants to make use of Peer’s corpse to find out where dreams have their origin. This passenger scares Peer out of his wits. He lands on shore bereft of all of his possessions, a pitiful and grumpy old man. Back home in Norway, Peer Gynt attends a peasant funeral, and an auction, where he offers for sale everything from his earlier life. The auction takes place at the very farm where the wedding once was held. Peer stumbles along, and is confronted with all that he did not do, his unsung songs, his unmade works, his unwept tears, and his questions that were never asked.

His mother comes back and claims that her deathbed went awry. He did not lead her to heaven with his ramblings. Peer escapes and is confronted with the Button-molder, who maintains that Peer’s soul must be melted down with other faulty goods unless he can explain when and where in life he has been “himself.” Peer protests. He has been only that, and nothing else. Then he meets the troll king, who states that he has been a troll, not a man, most of his life. The molder comes along and says that he has to come up with something if he is not to be melted down. Peer looks for a priest to confess his sins, and a character named the Lean One (who is the Devil), turns up. He believes Peer cannot be accounted a real sinner who can be sent to hell. He has not done anything serious. Peer despairs in the end, understanding that his life is forfeited. He understands he is nothing. But at the same moment, Solveig starts to sing — the cabin he himself built, is close at hand, but he dares not enter.

The Bøyg in him tells him “around.” The molder shows up and demands a list of sins, but Peer has none to give, unless Solveig can vouch for him. Then he breaks through to her, asking her for his sins. But she answers: “You have not sinned at all, my dearest boy.” Peer does not understand — he believes himself lost. Then he asks her: “Where has Peer Gynt been since we last met? Where was I as the one I should have been, whole and true, with the mark of God on my brow?” She answers; “In my faith, in my hope, in my love.” Peer screams and calls his mother, and hides himself in her lap. Solveig sings her lullaby for him, and we might presume he dies in this last scene of the play, although there are no stage directions or dialogue to indicate that he actually does.

Behind the corner, the button-molder, who is sent by God, still waits, with the words: “Peer, we shall meet at the last cross-roads, and then we shall see if… I’ll say no more.” Writing process On 5 January 1867 Ibsen wrote to Frederik Hegel, his publisher, with his plan for the play: it would be “a long dramatic poem, having as its principal a part-legendary, part-fictional character from Norwegian folklore during recent times. It will bear no resemblance to Brand, and will contain no direct polemics or anything of that kind.” He began to write Peer Gynt on 14 January, employing a far greater variety of metres in its rhymed verse than he had used in his previous verse plays Brand (written 1865) orLove’s Comedy (written 1862). The first two acts were completed in Rome and the third in Casamicciola on the north of the island of Ischia.

During this time, Ibsen told Vilhelm Bergsøe that “I don’t think the play’s for acting” when they discussed the possibility of staging the play’s image of a casting-ladle ”big enough to re-cast human beings in.” Ibsen sent the three acts to his publisher on 8 August, with a letter that explains that “Peer Gynt was a real person who lived in Gudbrandsdal, probably around the end of the last century or the beginning of this. His name is still famous among the people up there, but not much more is known about his life than what is to be found in Asbjørnsen’s Norwegian Folktales (in the section entitled ‘Stories from the Mountain’).” In those stories, “Per Gynt” rescues the three dairy-maids from the trolls and shoots the Bøyg, who was originally a gigantic, worm-shaped troll-being. Per was known to tell tall tales of his own achievements, a trait Peer in the play inherited.

The “buck-ride” story, which Peer tells his mother in the play’s first scene, is also from this source, but, as Åse points out, it was originally Gudbrand Glesne from Vågå who did the tour with the reindeer stag and finally shot it. Following an earthquake on Ischia on 14 August, Ibsen left for Sorrento, where he completed the final two acts; he finished the play on 14 October. It was published in a first edition of 1,250 copies a month later in Copenhagen. Background Ibsen’s previous play, Brand, preached the philosophy of “All or nothing.” Relentless, cruel, resolute, overriding in will, Brand went through everything that stood in his way toward gaining an ideal. Peer Gynt is a compensating balance, a complementary color to Brand. Instead of the iron will of Brand, Peer is will-less; instead of sufficient, he is insufficient; instead of resolute, irresolute. In handling all issues facing him, Peer goes around them. Brand had a phenomenal literary success, and people became curious to know what Ibsen’s next play would be.

The dramatist, about this time, was relieved of financial worry by two money grants, one from the Norwegian government and the other from the Scientific Society of Trondhjem. This enabled him to give to his work an unfettered mind. He went with his family to Frascati, where, in the Palazzo rooms, he looked many feet down upon the Mediterranean, and pondered his new drama. He preserved a profound silence about the content of the play, and begged his publisher, Hegel, to create as much mystery about it as possible. The portrayal of the Gynt family is known to be based on Henrik Ibsen’s own family and childhood memories; in a letter to Georg Brandes, Ibsen wrote that his own family and childhood had served “as some kind of model” for the Gynt family. In a letter to Peter Hansen, Ibsen confirmed that the character Åse, Peer Gynt’s mother, was based on his own mother, Marichen Altenburg. The character Jon Gynt is considered to be based on Ibsen’s father Knud Ibsen, who was a rich merchant before he went bankrupt.

Even the name of the Gynt family’s ancestor, the prosperous Rasmus Gynt, is borrowed from the Ibsen’s family’s earliest known ancestor. Thus, the character Peer Gynt could be interpreted as being an ironic representation of Henrik Ibsen himself. There are striking similarities to Ibsen’s own life; Ibsen himself spent 27 years living abroad and was never able to face his hometown again. Grieg’s music Ibsen asked Edvard Grieg to compose incidental music for the play. Grieg composed a score that plays approximately ninety minutes. Grieg extracted two suites of four pieces each from the incidental music (Opus 46 and Opus 55), which became very popular as concert music. Two of the sung parts of the incidental music ended up in these suites (the famous In the Hall of the Mountain King in the 1st suite with the vocal parts omitted, and the last part of 2nd suite, Solveig’s Song, the solo part now played by violin rather than sung, though the vocal version is sometimes substituted).

(Originally, the second suite had a fifth number, The Dance of the Mountain King’s Daughter, but Grieg withdrew it.) Grieg himself declared that it was easier to make music “out of his own head” than strictly following suggestions made by Ibsen. For instance, Ibsen wanted music that would characterize the “international” friends in the fourth act, by melding the said national anthems (Norwegian, Swedish, German, French and English). Reportedly, Grieg was not in the right mood for this task. The music of these suites, especially Morning Mood starting the first suite, In the Hall of the Mountain King, and the string lament Åse’s Death later reappeared in numerous arrangements, soundtracks, etc. Other Norwegian composers that have written theatrical music for Peer Gynt include Harald Sæverud (1947), Arne Nordheim (1969), Ketil Hvoslef (1993) and Jon Mostad (1993-4). Gunnar Sønstevold (1966) wrote music for a ballet version of Peer Gynt.

Peer Gynt Festival At Vinstra in Gudbrandsdalen, Henrik Ibsen and Peer Gynt have been celebrated with an annual festival since 1928. The festival is one of Norway’s main events, and is recognized by the Norwegian Government as a leading institution of presenting culture in nature. The main event in the festival is the staging of Peer Gynt next to Lake Gålå. The play is staged in the same surroundings in which Ibsen claims he found inspiration for the character Peer Gynt, and is regarded by many as the definitive version. The play is performed with professional actors from the national theater institutions, and nearly 100 amateur actors. Edvard Grieg’s original Peer Gynt music is performed by a professional orchestra. The event is one of the most popular theater productions in Norway, attracting more than 17,000 people every summer. Peer Gynt Sculpture Park Peer Gynt Sculpture Park (Peer Gynt-parken) is a sculpture park located in Oslo, Norway. Created in honour of Henrik Ibsen, it is a monumental presentation of Peer Gynt, scene by scene.

It was established in 2006 by Selvaag, the company behind the housing development in the area. Most of the sculptures in this park are the result of an international sculpture competition. Films There have been a number of film adaptations including: Peer Gynt (1915 film) Peer Gynt, incidental music, Op. 23 | Details | AllMusic Peer Gynt, incidental music, Op. 23 Share this page google+ Description by Michael Jameson The incidental music Edvard Grieg composed for Henrik Ibsen 's play Peer Gynt (1867) stands, along with his Holberg Suite and Piano Concerto, among his most universally popular orchestral works. By common consent, the music itself achieved far more for Ibsen 's vast and bewildering dramatic poem than any mere stage performance alone could have done, and therein lies a problem. For as Ibsen 's English biographer Michael Meyer writes, Grieg 's music "turns the play into a jolly Hans Andersen fairy tale," one thing its author would certainly never have wished for.

And the critic and playwright George Bernard Shaw , a fervent advocate of Ibsen 's works, similarly concluded that in his music Grieg "could only catch a few superficial points in the play instead of getting to the very heart and brain of it." That may well be the case, but Grieg 's Peer Gynt incidental music has nevertheless become a universal favorite, and it is not difficult to understand why. Ibsen decided to adapt his verse drama for performance at the Christiana (Oslo) Theatre in 1874, recognizing that his sprawling five-act play would benefit greatly from the addition of a musical score. Grieg 's music was first heard there in February 1876, but the initial production run was radically curtailed after fire destroyed the sets and costumes. The score, however, was enthusiastically received by the critics, and Grieg subsequently saw an opportunity to establish a separate identity for the music itself and drew from the more than two dozen numbers of the complete work two concert suites, Opp. 46 and 54. Conductors sometimes assemble ad hoc suites of their own as well.

The most popular numbers are "In the Hall of the Mountain King" (a textbook example of the dramatic potency of cumulative crescendo and accelerando, illustrating Grieg 's fondness for Germanic orchestral effects), in which Peer Gynt bargains for his life after the assembled Trolls call for his blood, and the highly evocative "Morning Mood" with its lovely flute solo and expansive orchestral language -- the music depicts, incidentally, not a fresh Nordic sunrise, but rather a Saharan dawn in Act IV of Ibsen 's drama! Other memorable moments include the fragile lyric utterances of "Solveig's Song," the beguiling "Anitra's Dance," the poignant "Death of Åse," "Peer Gynt's Homecoming: Stormy Evening at Sea," and his eventual "Shipwreck." As Anthony Burton writes, "the curtain falls as Peer's long and eventful journey finally comes to its end." Parts/Movements No. 1, Prelude (in the wedding garden) No. 2, The Bridal Procession (Wedding March) No. 3, Norwegian Dances (Hailing & Springdans) No.

4, Prelude (The Abduction of the Bride & Ingrid's Lament) No. 5, Peer Gynt and the Saeter-Maidens No. 6, Finale of the Scene with the Green-Clad Folk No. 7, In the Hall of the Mountain King No. 8, Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter No. 9a, Peer Gynt Hunted by Dwarfs No. 9b, Scene with the Hunchback No. 10, Prelude (Deep in the Coniferous Forest) No. 11, Solvejg's Song No. 12, The Death of Ase No. 13, Prelude (Morning Mood) No. 14, Thieves and Fences No. 15, Arabian Dance No. 17, Peer Gynt's Serenade No. 18, Solvejg's Song No. 19, Prelude (Peer Gynt's Homecoming) No. 20, Solvejg's Song in the Hut (unaccompanied) No.

21, Night Scene Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite - Charming Norwegian Music Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite Charming Norwegian Music Grieg's Peer Gynt suite is a selection of charming tunes from the composer's incidental music to a famous play. Explore the history and music here... Originally Grieg wrote a collection of 33 pieces as incidental music to renowned playwright Henrik Ibsen's new drama Peer Gynt. The play is full of high drama, adventure, tragedy, and comedy all mashed into one. Grieg's characteristically clean music perfectly fits the strong Norwegian feel and ideas of the play, and breathes life into the moods and episodes. Peer Gynt is the hero. He's the typical Norwegian scoundrel: lazy, indulgent, and impetuous, who dreams of being the ruler of the world. The play charts his entire life of dreams, travels, and crimes. Henrik Ibsen met Grieg in Italy in 1866. They connected quickly, sharing ideas and opinions about art and drama. Ibsen was impressed by Grieg's musical talents. So naturally when Ibsen was casting around for a composer for his new play Peer Gynt, his gaze settled on Grieg.

Grieg started the commission, all fired up. But it took him longer to complete than he thought it would, and its complexity burned away some of his enthusiasm. But, with patience and persistence, the task was eventually finished. Peer Gynt had its premiere in Oslo in February 1876. Grieg's music for the play was a super-success, and stamped him with fame across Europe and the rest of the world. The incidental music was first published as a piano duet. It wasn't until after Grieg died that the entire orchestral score was published. But during Grieg's lifetime audiences could enjoy two delightful suites hand-picked by the composer himself... The first suite appeared in 1880, and the second in 1891. Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 Morning Mood: The opening of the first suite captures the beginning of the day in the glorious mountains and forests of Norway. Birds sing, the sun rises, and everything is fresh and lovely. Aase's Death: An elegy depicting Peer Gynt's mother Aase dying alone on a mountain. This haunting, stark piece shows Grieg's masterful grasp of simplicity and power.

Anitra's Dance: A seductive dance evoking the gracefulness of Anitra, a chieftain's daughter whom Peer Gynt is infatuated with. In the Hall of the Mountain King: A hugely famous and popular piece, this is perhaps Grieg's most well known tune. A frantic piece depicting the bizarre dances of gnomes, and their chase of Peer Gynt. The melody repeats over and over again, each time growing faster and more savage. Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, Op. 55 The Abduction of the Bride. Peer and Ingrid: Depicts Peer Gynt kidnapping Ingrid, who is about to be married, and taking her to the mountains. This starts out quickly, and then becomes sad and dramatic. Arabian Dance: A charming little dance evoking Peer Gynt's travels in Morocco. Peer Gynt's Homecoming: A stormy piece, describing Peer's journey back to Norway. Unfortunately he gets shipwrecked! Solveig's Song: A touching piece from the end of Act IV of the play. Grieg manages to capture an atmosphere of wistful sadness, with an absolutely beautiful melody.

Both these suites are among some of the most often-played music in the 20th century - wow! Another Grieg piece which is often played is his monumental Piano Concerto in A minor. Recommended Recordings I'm going to recommend my favorite version of the suites, and then a recording of the complete incidental music. The best recording of the suites I know of is by conductor Neeme Jarvi with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, from 1990. The tempi are perfect, the balance and texture of the orchestra is brilliant. Jarvi somehow breathes magical life into these pieces and captures the fantastic mood which has made them so popular. This recording has both suites. Suites (Mostly) complete incidental music: This recording by Paavo Jarvi conducting the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra has nearly all of the incidental music. It leaves out about six of the pieces, but still gives you a great feel for the drama and spirit of the play (without the Norwegian dialogue and yelling which some other recordings somehow want to add). The recording is warm and slightly too bright, but the playing wonderfully skilled and atmospheric.

Edvard Grieg — Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and photos at Last.fm instrumental Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist who composed in the romantic period.

He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen 's play Peer Gynt (includes Morning Mood and In the Hall of the Mountain King), his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces, as well as transcribing many Norwegian folk songs to piano which are present in his Slåtter and Peasant Dances… read more Edvard Grieg & Henrik Ibsen: Peer Gynt - Guillaume Tourniaire | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic Edvard Grieg & Henrik Ibsen: Peer Gynt AllMusic Rating google+ AllMusic Review by Stephen Eddins Aeon's 2005 recording of Ibsen 's 1867 verse play Peer Gynt, including the incidental music by Edvard Grieg , grew out of performances in Geneva in 1998 and 2000 featuring L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Le Motet de Genève .

The concert version, which required trimming the five-hour play to a manageable two hours, included all of Grieg 's music and enough of Ibsen 's text, along with linking narration written by Alain Perroux , to provide the listener with a context for following the story. It can't be claimed to have the same impact as hearing the music incorporated into the full play (a virtual impossibility, given the economics of theatrical productions and the attention span of modern audiences), but it is probably as close an approximation of that experience as can reasonably be expected, and as such it’s highly successful. Sections of the play for which Grieg provided underscoring are even more powerfully effective when heard in context than when isolated from it, as is usual in the orchestral performances of the suites the composer derived from the score, an indication that he had sure instincts for writing for the stage. "The Death of Ase" is almost unbearably wrenching in this setting. Actors Alex Jennings , Haydn Gwynne , and Derek Jacobi offer splendidly vivid characterizations, dividing the roles between them, and Jacobi makes a fine Narrator.

Guillaume Tourniaire leads L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in sensitive and carefully shaped performances of the musical episodes. His is a fairly conventional reading of the score, but it is spirited and played with style and shouldn't disappoint the composer's fans. The addition of the chorus, particularly in the movements devoted to Peer's adventures in the hall of the Mountain King, is especially exhilarating, and Le Motet de Genève sings beautifully and vigorously. The vocal soloists are very fine, particularly Inger Dam-Jensen as Solveig. Grieg 's use of a Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian folk instrument similar to a violin, is exceptionally effective and gives the score a much stronger nationalistic flavor than the music from the suites suggests, and it's played with raw vitality by Vegar Vardal . Aeon's sound is clear and well-balanced, with a vibrant sense of presence. Anyone who loves Grieg 's music is likely to be thrilled to hear everything he wrote for the play, particularly when performed so well, and in the dramatic context for which it was conceived.

Track Listing - Disc 1 Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite No.1 - YouTube Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite No.1 Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Nov 24, 2011 Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) is the greatest composer Norway has fostered. In retrospect one may wonder how a country with neither national freedom nor a long tradition of art music could have produced a man of such genius. Up to 1814 Norway had been totally subject to Denmark, with Copenhagen as its cultural center. From 1814 to 1905 it was forced into a union with Sweden. The first half of the eighteenth century was a time of poverty in Norway and it was some time before it could assert itself among its Scandinavian brothers. But for the highly gifted these are perhaps the ideal conditions for providing impetus and nurturing growth.

In the autumn of 1858, Edvard Grieg, then only 15 years old, went to the Leipzig Conservatory to study music. His teachers were among the most eminent in Europe, and four years later he left the Conservatory as a full-fledged musician and composer. In the years up to 1866, Grieg lived in Copenhagen, leaving it only to make brief study trips. Grieg's style was based on the German romantic tradition of music but bit by bit national awareness developed within him, coupled with a growing need to create a typical Norwegian style of music. His friendships and discussions with other young Norwegians also furthered this development. In Copenhagen Grieg had met Rikard Nordraak, whose patriotism reached its fullest expression in the choral setting of Norway's national anthem. In 1869 Grieg, on a state stipend, left for Italy. His encounter with Franz Liszt and the artistic circles in Rome gave him fresh inspiration and self-confidence. Fired with new energy and enthusiasm he returned to Christiania in 1870.

There he initiated a fruitful cooperation with Bjornstjerne Bjornson, who for many years had been waiting for a composer who could write Norwegian music that would expand and bring to life his poems and dramas. Grieg's dramatic talents were put to a test when Henrik Ibsen asked him to write the incidental music to "Peer Gynt." This was no easy task for Grieg, but the music he wrote became one of the major works of the 1870s. In Grieg's own lifetime the "Peer Gynt" music scored a resounding international success thanks, not least, to the two orchestral suites which made the music accessible in the concert hall. A number of music researchers have pointed to the significance of Grieg's later works on the French impressionists' search for a new world of sound. After Grieg's death Maurice Ravel visited Oslo, where he was asked, whether Norwegian music had influenced him. His answer was: "I am fairly certain, that Edvard Grieg's influence was much more significant in non-nordic countries than here in the north. The generation of French composers, which I am part of, was strongly attracted by Grieg's music.

Next to Debussy there's no other composer, whom I feel more related to, than Grieg." Bela Bartok, who attempted to renew musical style in the twentieth century on the basis of folk music, also received important impulses from Grieg's piano adaptations of such melodies. Edvard Grieg's goal was to create a national form of music which could give the Norwegian people an identity, and in this respect he was an inspiration to other composers. But the greatness of his works lies not just in this, but in the fact that he also succeeded in expressing thoughts and emotions which could be recognized everywhere; music which people could identify with. Grieg's music transcended national boundaries. Viewed in this perspective, it is evident that he was far more than just a national composer. Peer Gynt Suite No.1

Question: Who composed the incidental music to Ibsen's play 'Peer Gynt'?
Answer: EDWARD GRIEG